Before the Signatures: A New Vázquez de Coronado Site at the El
Morro NM

Inscription Rock at El Morro National Monument.

Over the last four centuries, the site of Inscription Rock – also
known as El Morro National Monument – has become a signature historical
monument in both a literal and figurative sense. Lying close to the Continental
Divide and located along the well-traveled prehistoric route between Zuni
and Ácoma Pueblos in west-central New Mexico, Inscription Rock has
attracted a wide range of prehistoric and historic period occupations(1).
The large concentration of rock art and engraved signatures on this imposing
sandstone promontory bear witness to the frequency of these visits and activities(2),
and inspired one of the site’s more popular names.

While two Ancestral Pueblo sites on the mesa top are believed to have been
occupied from c. 1275 to 1350 AD(3), and Native American petroglyphs
along the base of Inscription Rock range from the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries AD(4), the earliest known European inscription at the
site dates to 1605(5). Don Juan de Oñate, the first Spanish
Governor of New Mexico, visited the El Morro area in that year and engraved
a dated memorial following the return of his expedition from the “South
Sea” (i.e., the Gulf of California)(6).

During the last five hundred years, a number of important factors have
made El Morro an attractive location for travelers: the excellent grazing
resources in the El Morro Valley, the large pool of water or tinaja
located at Inscription Rock, the shallow playa lakes that appear periodically
in the immediate vicinity, the shelter afforded from bitterly cold west
winds, and the site’s proximity to the well-traveled Zuni-Ácoma
Trail.

The 1605 Oñate inscription at El Morro NM.

Until November 2007, the earliest physical trace of a European presence
at the site was the 1605 Oñate inscription. Although historical documents
hint at visits by earlier sixteenth-century Spanish entradas(7)
– particularly the 1583 expedition led by Antonio de Espejo(8)
– no material evidence of these expeditions had ever been identified
at the El Morro National Monument.

Following work directed by Charles Haecker in late 2007, and funded by
the National Park Service (NPS) Heritage Partnerships Program, dramatic
new evidence emerged linking El Morro with the earliest major Spanish entrada
in the desert Southwest – i.e., the 1540-1542 expedition of Capitan
General Francisco Vázquez de Coronado. A range of metal artifacts
recovered during this two-day investigation point to the presence of the
Vázquez de Coronado expedition. These artifacts include: three caret-headed
nails (horse shoe nails), a lead (or copper alloy) coin or scale weight,
a wrought iron needle, and a wrought iron chain which may be a bridle chain.
Although a number of other Spanish Colonial objects were found in the course
of this preliminary survey, such as a rose-head nail (a hand forged nail),
a cast iron escutcheon plate, and two wrought iron nail shafts, none of
these artifacts can be dated more precisely at this time.

A caret-headed nail—evidence of European visitors predating Oñate's
inscription.

Caret-headed nails are considered some of the most diagnostic artifacts
associated with the expedition of Vázquez de Coronado, since they
are found on a variety of other sites linked with this entrada in both New
Mexico and Texas(9). Furthermore, caret-headed nails were found
at the Governor Martin site, near Tallahassee, Florida – a location
widely believed to be Hernando de Soto’s 1539-1540(10) winter
camp. In addition, Mathers and Haecker(11) have demonstrated recently
that caret-headed nails are not only known in a variety of contexts in Central-South
America and Europe during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries,
but that these nail forms appear to be largely, if not altogether, absent
in later sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century contexts in many
parts of North America. While further research remains to be done, these
patterns appear to be widespread and may be applicable not only to the American
Southwest and Southeast, but to areas further afield as well.

The scale weight or coin weight found at El Morro during our survey bears
a striking resemblance to an object recovered by Kathleen Deagan at the
site of Concepción de la Vega (c. 1496-1502) in the Dominican Republic.
The close correspondence in appearance between these two artifacts, and
their similar function, was confirmed Deagan after examining photographs
of the El Morro weight (pers. comm., March 2009)(12). In addition,
a small wrought iron chain with three closed links and one terminal link
left open to form a hook matches some of the morphological and metrical
characteristics of sixteenth-century chains found elsewhere in the Southwest
and in the United Kingdom(13). Significantly, the closest parallel
to the El Morro chain – with respect to manufacturing technique, size,
and shape – comes from an chain recovered from the Jimmy Owens site
in the Texas Panhandle, a confirmed Vázquez de Coronado campsite.
The form and rather diminutive size of the chains from El Morro and Jimmy
Owens strongly suggest their use as horse gear and possibly as bridle chains(14).
These parallels for the scale/coin weight and wrought iron chain point to
a date in the first half of the sixteenth century.

Together with the presence of caret-headed nails, these objects imply a
Spanish/European presence at El Morro in the first half of the sixteenth
century and strongly suggest an association with the 1540-1542 entrada of
Vázquez de Coronado. Contemporary historical documents indicate that,
after spending four months at the Zuni Pueblos between July and November
1540, the approximately 2800 members of the expedition moved in a number
of separate parties from the Zuni area to the Tiguex (Southern Tiwa Pueblo)
region, near present day Albuquerque(15). Guided by natives, and
no doubt using existing trails where possible, it is widely believed that
the components of the Vázquez de Coronado expedition traveling from
Zuni to Tiguex followed a route that took them through the El Morro area.
The next Spanish expedition to enter New Mexico and the desert Southwest,
between 1581 and 1582, was a far smaller party of some 31 individuals lead
by Francisco Sánchez Chamuscado and Fray Augustín Rodríguez(16).
It is our belief that during the four decades or more that separate the
Vázquez de Coronado entrada from later sixteenth century expeditions
in the American Southwest (including Sánchez Chamuscado-Rodríguez
amongst others), there were a number of detectable changes in material culture.
Consequently, it is our hope that early Contact Period assemblages in the
American Southwest will be examined more systematically, and that they will
be compared with both contemporary and later assemblages elsewhere. Regional
and inter-regional comparative work of this kind has the potential to contribute
significantly to our understanding of the Early Contact Period generally.

Further investigations at the El Morro National Monument are planned to
identify and evaluate encampment areas associated with the various components
of the Vázquez de Coronado entrada – large and small - that
may have visited the area between the summer of 1540 when they entered New
Mexico, and the spring of 1542 when the expedition returned to México.
In the meantime, El Morro National Monument now has additional historical
significance as a site linked with one of the most dramatic and transformational
moments in the history of the desert Southwest: the 1540-1542 entrada of
Vázquez de Coronado.

Finally, these discoveries provide an especially compelling case for the
value of historic preservation. On 8th June, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt
signed into law “An Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities”(17)
and on 8th December, 1906, El Morro was proclaimed as the nation’s
second national monument(18). More than a hundred years later,
the importance of that decision has been amplified by the discovery of archeological
materials indicating that El Morro was visited by the first major European
entrada into the American Southwest. Thanks to the passage of the 1906 Antiquities
Act and the legislative foresight of President Roosevelt, the U.S. Congress
and other dedicated professionals, the historic significance of the El Morro
National Monument has been both preserved and enhanced. The unforeseen consequences
of that Act, and the efforts made to preserve and expand the El Morro National
Monument through time, emphasize the value of both historic preservation
and a long-term perspective in protecting our collective cultural patrimony.

A version of this report was originally published in CRM: The Journal
of Heritage Stewardship, Vol. 7 (1), Winter 2010.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to extend their thanks to the staff and to Kayci
Cook Collins, Superintendent, El Morro and El Malpais NM, who granted permission
for our survey on short notice; Christopher Adams, Gila National Forest
who lent his extraordinary expertise, good humor and analytical skills;
Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint, Research Fellows, Center for Desert
Archaeology; Douglas Scott, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln;
and Jim Bradford, Archeology Program Director, NPS-Intermountain Region,
Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Our particular thanks go to the following, who helped enormously with identifications
of early European colonial artifacts: Kathleen Deagan, Florida Museum of
Natural History; Steve Wernke and William Fowler, Vanderbilt University;
John Connaway, Mississippi Department of Archives and History; Jeffrey Mitchem,
Arkansas Archeological Survey; Jeb Card, Southern Illinois University; Nancy
Marble, Floyd County, Texas, Historical Museum; William Botts and Wade Stablein,
Padre Island NS; Jonathan Damp, Humboldt State University; Robin Gavin,
Spanish Colonial Art Museum; Cordelia Snow, Archaeological Records Management
Section; Julia Clifton, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture; Frances Levine,
Museum of the Palace of the Governors; David Snow, Cross-Cultural Research
Systems; and Bruce Huckell, David Phillips and Ann Ramenofsky at the University
of New Mexico; Robin Boast, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University
of Cambridge; Andrew Myers, University of Manchester; John Clark and Geoff
Egan, Museum of London; and Glenn Foard, English Heritage-Battlefields Trust.

Notes

James H. Simpson, Report and Map of the Route from Fort Smith, Arkansas
to Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S. Senate, Executive Document 12, 31st
Congress, 1st Session, 1850 (Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, 1850)
1-12; Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves, Report of an Expedition Down the
Zuni and the Colorado Rivers in 1851 (Chicago, IL: Rio Grande Press,
1853 [1962]); S.W. Woodhouse, “Report on the Natural History of
the Country Passed Over by the Exploring Expedition Under the Command
of Brevet Captain L. Sitgreaves, U.S. Topographical Engineers, During
the Year 1851,”, in Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves, Report of an
Expedition Down the Zuni and Colorado Rivers in 1851, U.S. Senate,
Executive Document 59, 32nd Congress, 2nd Session, 1853 (Washington, D.C.:
Robert Armstrong, 1853) 35; Walter J. Fewkes, “Reconnaissance of
Ruins in or Near the Zuni Reservation”, Journal of American
Ethnology and Archaeology 1 (1891) 117; Adolph F. Bandelier, “Final
Report of Investigations Among the Indians of the Southwestern United
States, Carried On Mainly in the Years from 1880 to 1885 (Part II),”
Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America, American Series
4 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1892) 328-329; Leslie
Spier, “An Outlier for a Chronology of Zuni Ruins,” Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 18 (New York, NY:
American Museum of Natural History, 1917) 248; Lewis B. Lesley, (ed.),
Uncle Sam’s Camels: The Journal of May Humphreys Stacey Supplemented
by the Report of Edward Fitzgerald Beale (1857-1858) (Marino, CA:
Huntington Library Press, 1929 [2006]) 85; Irving A. Leonard, The
Mecurio Volante of Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora. An Account
of the First Expedition of Don Diego de Vargas into New Mexico in 1692.
Quivira Society Publications Volume III. (Los Angeles, CA: Quivira Society,
1932) 78; J Manuel Espinosa, Crusaders of the Río Grande: The
Story of Don Diego de Vargas and the Reconquest and Refounding of New
Mexico (Chicago, IL: Institute of Jesuit History, 1942) 92; Richard
B. Woodbury, “Columbia University Archaeological Fieldwork, 1952-1953”,
Southwestern Lore 19 (1954):11; Richard B. Woodbury, “The
Antecedents of Zuni Culture”, Transactions of the New York Academy
of Sciences, Series 2, 18 (1956):557-563; Richard Woodbury and Natalie
F.S. Woodbury, “Zuni Prehistory and the El Morro National Monument”,
Southwestern Lore 21 (1956):56-60; Grant Foreman, A Pathfinder
in the Southwest: The Itinerary of Lieutenant A.W. Whipple During His
Explorations for a Railway Route from Fort Smith to Los Angeles in the
Years 1853 and 1854 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968)
132-134; Steven A. LeBlanc, “Settlement Patterns in the El Morro
Valley, New Mexico,” in Robert Euler and George Gummerman (eds.),
Investigations of the Southwestern Anthropological Research Group
(Flagstaff, AZ: Museum of Northern Arizona, 1978) 45-52; Patty Jo Watson,
Steven A. LeBlanc and Charles Redman, “Aspects of Zuni Prehistory:
Preliminary Report on the Excavations and Survey in the El Morro Valley
of New Mexico,” Journal of Field Archaeology 7 (1980):201-218;
Keith W. Kintigh, Settlement, Subsistence, and Society in Late Zuni
Prehistory, Anthropological Papers, Number 44 (Tucson, AZ: University
of Arizona Press, 1985) 44-45, 80-81; Mary McDougall Gordon (ed.), Through
Indian Country to California: John O. Shepburne’s Diary of the Whipple
Expedition, 1853-1854. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1988) 127-128; Steven A. LeBlanc, “Warfare and Aggregation in the
El Morro Valley, New Mexico,” in Glen E. Rice and Steven A. LeBlanc
(eds.), Deadly Landscapes: Case Studies in Prehistoric Southwestern
Warfare (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2001) 19-49.

John M. Slater, El Morro, Inscription Rock, New Mexico. The Rock
Itself, the Inscriptions Thereon, and the Travelers Who Made Them
(Los Angeles, CA: The Plantin Press, 1961) 49; Polly Schaafsma, Rock
Art In New Mexico (Santa Fe, NM: Museum of New Mexico, 1992) 25,
148-150.

Evidence for a visit to El Morro by the expedition of Antonio de Espejo
in 1583 is compelling. The narrative account of Diego Pérez de
Luxán, a member of the Espejo party, suggests it is very probable
that this group did camp in the El Morro area (see George P. Hammond and
Agapito Rey, Expedition into New Mexico Made by Antonio de Espejo
1582-1583 as Revealed in the Journal of Diego Pérez de Luxán,
A Member of the Party (Los Angeles, CA: Quivira Society Publications.
Volume I. The Quivira Society, [reprinted New York, NY: Arno Press, 1930
[1967]) 35, 88. Traveling from the Pueblo of Ácoma to the Zuni
area in March of 1583, Pérez de Luxán indicates:

We set out from this place [El Elado] on the eleventh
of the month and marched three leagues and stopped at a waterhole at
the foot of a rock. This place we named El Estanque del Peñol.
(Hammond and Rey 1930 [1967]:88)

Bradley J. Vierra, (ed.) A Sixteenth-Century Spanish Campsite in
the Tiguex Province, Laboratory of Anthropology Note 475 (Santa Fe,
NM: Museum of New Mexico, 1989); Bradley J. Vierra, “A Sixteenth-Century
Spanish Campsite in the Tiguex Province: An Archaeologist’s Perspective,”
in Bradley J. Vierra (ed.), Current Research on the Late Prehistory
and Early History of New Mexico. Special Publication 1 (Albuquerque,
NM: New Mexico Archaeological Council, 1992) 165-174; Bradley J. Vierra
and Stanley M. Hordes, “Let the Dust Settle: A Review of the Coronado
Campsite in the Tiguex Province,” in Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing
Flint (eds.), The Coronado Expedition to Tierra Nueva: The 1540-1542
Route Across the Southwest (Niwot, CO: The University Press of Colorado,
1997) 249-261; Donald J. Blakeslee, and Jay C. Blaine, “The Jimmy
Owens Site: New Perspectives on the Coronado Expedition,” in Richard
Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint (eds.), The Coronado Expedition from
the Distance of 460 Years (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico
Press, 2003) 203-218; Jonathan E. Damp, The Battle of Hawikku, Archaeological
Investigations of the Zuni-Coronado Encounter at Hawikku, the Ensuing
Battle, and the Aftermath during the Summer of 1540. Zuni Cultural
Resources Enterprise Report 884, Research Series 13 (Zuni, NM: Zuni Cultural
Resources Enterprise, 2005); Clay Mathers, Phil Leckman, and Nahide Aydin,
“‘Non-Ground Breaking’ Research at the Edge of Empire:
Geophysical and Geospatial Approaches to Sixteenth-Century Interaction
in Tiguex Province (New Mexico),” Paper Presented for the Symposium
Between Entrada and Salida: New Mexico Perspectives on the Coronado
Expedition, Charles Haecker and Clay Mathers, organizers. Society
for Historical Archaeology Annual Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico,
January 12, 2008.

Ewen, Charles, “The Archaeology of the Governor Martin Site. The
Data,” in Charles R. Ewen and John H. Hann. Hernando de Soto
Among the Apalachee: The Archaeology of the First Winter Encampment
(Gainesville, FL: University of Press of Florida, 1998) 59-98.

Clay Mathers and Charles Haecker, Social and Spatial Modeling of
Historic Period Expeditions at El Morro National Monument (El Morro, New
Mexico) (Denver, CO: National Park Service, forthcoming); Clay Mathers
and Charles Haecker, “Between Cíbola and Tiguex: Modeling
the Vázquez de Coronado Expedition at the El Morro National Monument,”
in Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint (eds.), So You Think You
Know About the Coronado Expedition? (Albuquerque, NM: University
of New Mexico Press, in preparation).

Our thanks to Dr. Deagan for her help in identifying this object and
its possible functions. Also, see Kathleen Deagan, Artifacts of the
Spanish Colonies of Florida and the Caribbean, Volume 2: Portable Personal
Possessions (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002)
261, Figure 12.19, object in three o’clock position.

In addition to the chain from the Vázquez de Coronado site of
Jimmy Owens in the Texas Panhandle, there are examples with similar characteristics
from the wreck of the Spanish vessel San Esteban, which went down
near Padre Island, Texas in April 1554 - see J. Barto Arnold, and
Robert Weddle, The Nautical Archaeology of Padre Island: The Spanish Shipwrecks
of 1554 (New York, NY: Academic Press, 1978) 234-235, Figure 23c. Another
parallel comes from a chain attached to forked stirrup suspender (iron)
derived from excavations by the Museum of London in the waterfront area
of Southwark on the River Thames. The chain associated with the iron stirrup
suspender from Southwark has ‘figure 8’-shaped links similar
to the El Morro chain and was found in a refuse dump with ceramics dating
to c. 1575-1600 – see Geoff Egan, Material Culture in London
in an Age of Transition: Tudor and Stuart Period Finds c 1450 –
c 1700 from Excavations at Riverside Sites in Southwark. Museum of
London Monograph 19 (London, UK: Museum of London Archaeological Service,
2005) 164-165, Figure 165 – Object #854 ABO92.

We are grateful to William Fouts at Lassen Volcanic NP, for his expertise
in horse gear.

Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint, Documents of the Coronado
Expedition, 1539-1542. “They Were Not Familiar with His Majesty,
nor Did They Wish to Be His Subjects”, (Dallas, TX: Southern
Methodist University Press, 2005) 400-402.

George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, The Rediscovery of New Mexico
1580-1594: The Explorations of Chamusacado, Espejo, Castaño de
Sosa, Morlete and Leyva de Bonilla y Humaña. Coronado Cuarentennial
Publications, 1540-1940. Volume III. (Albuquerque, NM: University of New
Mexico, 1966) 8.

David Harmon, Francis P. McManamon and Dwight T. Pitcaithley, “Introduction:
The Importance of the Antiquities Act,” in David Harmon, Francis
P. McManamon and Dwight T. Pitcaithley (eds.), The Antiquities Act:
A Century of American Archaeology, Historic Preservation and Nature Conservation
(Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press) 2.

David Harmon, Francis P. McManamon and Dwight T. Pitcaithley (eds.),
“Appendix: Essential Facts and Figures on the National Monuments”
in David Harmon, Francis P. McManamon and Dwight T. Pitcaithley (eds.),
The Antiquities Act: A Century of American Archaeology, Historic Preservation
and Nature Conservation (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press)
288; John M. Slater, El Morro, Inscription Rock, New Mexico. The Rock
Itself, the Inscriptions Thereon, and the Travelers Who Made Them
(1961) 49.